Sunday

This is another installment in our series, Answers to Objections. I've heard this one implied and also spoken aloud: Fundamentalism is fundamentalism. In other words, the dangerous thing is the fundamentalism itself, and it is not proper to single out any one religion because they all have their extremists.

The answer to this is, as always, basic education in Islam. Underlying the statement is one big assumption that happens to be wrong — that the core teachings of all religions are the same. When you clear up this misconception, the argument "fundamentalism is fundamentalism" will lose its foundation.

The truth is, not all religions are the same. Islam has several precepts in its core teachings, written in their most holy book, the Qur'an (which you have hopefully read cover to cover by now) that are different from any other religion.

For example, it says in the Qur'an it is a Muslim's duty to refuse to be friends with a non-Muslim, to deceive them if it will help the cause of Islam, to strive to subjugate non-Muslims politically, and if they resist, to make war on the unbelievers and slaughter them. It doesn't imply this. It doesn't require any interpretation or reading between the lines. It says this quite clearly. So a "fundamentalist" who is following Islam will be (and, as you can see around the world, IS) quite a bit more willing to kill people just because they are not Muslims than, say, a fundamentalist Buddhist or Hindu. Read a fairly complete comparison between Islam and Christianity here.

Another thing very different about Islam is that it is written in very straightforward prose by a single man. Most non-Muslims don't even know this much about Islam. The Qur'an isn't a collection of writings from many different sources. It isn't metaphorical. It isn't strewn with allegories open to interpretation.

If you have read the Qur'an, you may speak with authority about this. The person who says "fundamentalism is fundamentalism" is either a Muslim giving you taqiyya or a (probably well-meaning) non-Muslim who has never read the Qur'an. Your best approach is probably to convince them that they cannot know what's true about Islam until they, too, read the Qur'an for themselves.

That's how I've approached answering this objection before, and it has worked fairly well. If you have tried a different approach, we'd love to hear it. Please leave it in comments on this article.

5
comments:

Hello Citizen Warrior,First of all excuse me for my poor use of english i am from Lithuania.

A very informative blog you have here, it has much usefull knowledge about true reasons of islam.

Although Lithuania currently does not have many problems with islam i can feel they are building up too fast and I am generally very worried about the rise of political correctness, tolerance for anything and anyone and general pussines of our society during 20 years of our independence.

What iritates me most is that lobbyists from European Union are pushing their shallow political correct agenda down our throats and we seem to like it. They present it this way: if we don't adopt their ideologies - we are illiterate barbarians, xenophobes, islamophobes etc.

What irritates me even more that our society becomes even more succumbed to this nonsense and you can't even say a joke about poles, jews, muslims, whatever in circles of so called educated society without being labeled racist, xenophobe or even nazi.

I think you're right, Lithuania. Europe is deeper in the manure than the U.S., mainly because the Muslim population is far higher in Europe.

There is a direct relationship between the percentage of the population that is Muslim and the intensity of the Muslim push for special considerations. That's the crack in the wall they are using to breach our defenses: Gaining concessions.

Sam Harris ,with whom I do not see eye to eye on many things,made a brilliant observationon Islam-that the problem of Islam is not that it is fundamentalist,it is the fundamentals of Islam which are the problem.

Index for the Quran

Chronological Order

If you have a traditional Qur'an, get a PDF document to help you read the chapters in the order they were revealed rather than the traditional order (which is the longest to the shortest chapter): Click here.

Start Your Own Leaflet Campaign

Use this very informative and economical leaflet to help educate your fellow non-Muslims about Islam. Click here to read about the idea and get links to the PDF downloads.

Pamphlets and Leaflets

Print these out and use them to help you inform your fellow non-Muslims: Click here.

Brochure About Islam

This is a full color PDF document to print a two-sided brochure about basic information on Islam:

Let's Help Each Other

Take the Pledge

Some people say Islam is a religion of peace and that Islam has been hijacked by extremists, terrorists, and stealth jihadists who twist and distort the peaceful teachings of the Quran and quote it out of context.

Others say that political, supremacist, and even violent teachings are fundamental to Islam, and that people who say otherwise either haven’t read the Quran or are protecting Islam with religious deception (taqiyya).

The general confusion about the nature of Islam makes us collectively unable to make informed decisions. You can help end this confusion by reading the Quran. Stop believing what other people say and find out for yourself.

Article Spotlight

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).